1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network device, such as a print server, a facsimile server or an MFP (Multiple Function Printer) having these functions in complex with each other, which is network-connected with a plurality of terminal devices and can function as a server that can be accessed by these terminal devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Prepared in a network system, in which various devices (network devices) that can function as servers are connected with a plurality of terminal devices through a network, is a function (network filtering function) which makes it possible to set a terminal device an access from which is not authorized (rejected) or a terminal device an access from which is authorized, for the purpose of ensuring security or the like.
Disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H10-143338 (1998), for example, is a network printer serving as a network device which performs network filtering using an IP address as identification information for identifying a terminal device, so that a print (access) can be made only through a terminal device that is preliminarily registered.
With the invention disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H10-143338 (1998), the network filtering can be set through a terminal device which is directly connected by a serial interface; meanwhile, the network filtering in a recent network device can be set through a specific terminal device, for example a terminal device for the administrator, via a network using a dedicated application or browser.
In such a network system, however, a plurality of terminal devices are connected to the network while one or precious few terminal devices for the administrator are provided therein. Moreover, identification information, such as an IP address, for specifying each terminal device is given even to a terminal device for the administrator as well as other terminal devices. Such identification information of a terminal device for the administrator is not especially different from that of other terminal devices, and is merely different in some numbers, signs or the like.
Consequently, in a case where access rejection against a network device is set through a terminal device for the administrator, for example, there is a fear that, when an address of a terminal device for the administrator has been inputted by mistake, the administrator using the terminal device for the administrator completes setting without noticing the fact. When such setting is performed, any access to the network device cannot be made even from the terminal device for the administrator and the terminal device for the administrator cannot set access authorization of its own for the network device.
When such a situation occurs, there arises a need for hardware reset of the network device in the worst case, and accordingly, there arises a need for the whole reset of the network device since various settings other than the setting of the network filtering are reset and erased.